


I've Got a Pal in Kalamazoo

by clokkerfoot



Series: Stevebucky domesticity series [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Dancing, Dancing and Singing, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Nostalgia, Singing, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 22:35:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5473040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clokkerfoot/pseuds/clokkerfoot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve likes the old swing music from the 40s. Bucky doesn’t. But there’s one song that never fails to put Bucky in a good mood, especially when Steve starts singing it in the shower at 4AM.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I've Got a Pal in Kalamazoo

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: You should listen to [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO5Yi2EvF08) while you read it. Trust me.

Since moving into Steve’s home a couple of blocks away from the Avengers tower, Bucky had gotten used to hearing Steve play music from the 40s at absolutely fucking obscene times of day.

He recognised all the old songs, obviously--there wasn't a song from the old days Steve knew that Bucky didn't-- but when it came to the new, modern ones, Bucky was completely lost. He’d heard Barton play a song called  _Anaconda_ , and since then Bucky’d kept a damn barge pole between himself and modern “pop”. Thankfully, Steve liked swing. A lot. It was embarrassing. (Of all the things that had changed, Bucky wasn't surprised to discover that Steve’s love of swing hadn't faded, but that didn't make it any less terrible.)

Bucky hadn't really been talking to Steve, recently. When he had a “down day” (Tony’s phrase, not Bucky’s, and it was  _stupid_  because Bucky had got a helluva lot better recently) he would spend most of his time in his room, trying to sleep away the depression. He didn't want Steve to see him all fucked up and sad and sort of wanting to die--of  _course_  he didn't--no matter how much Steve wanted to help. Damn patriot. On these miserable, shitty days, Steve would play more swing. He wouldn't try to force Bucky out of his room, but eventually the songs would pull Bucky out the door of his own accord, straight into Steve’s waiting arms. (Steve had also somehow managed to remain an absolutely godawful dancer, so Bucky never got left behind when they pranced around the front room like dames.)

All the “young ‘uns” (also Tony’s phrase) thought that Steve’s music all sounded the same, and yelled over the sound of it when Steve put Glenn Miller on his headset in the middle of a mission.

(They weren't supposed to play music anymore, not after the mysterious and  _never_ -discussed “Wrecking Ball Incident” that happened before Bucky joined the team a few months back, but then Steve hadn't ever really played by the rules.)

(Bucky still loved him for that, after all this time. Fucking punk, he was. Still.)

On this particular “down day”, Bucky was just sat in his bedroom, throwing a red rubber ball back and forth against the wall, alternating catching it with his flesh-and-blood hand and his metal one. He felt like utter shit with a fucking cherry on top, Steve’s milk-and-cookie offering be damned, and the bruise on his chin from the mission the day before wasn't helping his crappy mood one bit.

The rhythmic thudding of the ball smacking against the wall almost covered up the music that started playing in the bathroom down the hall. It wasn't unusual, Steve playing swing at four AM, by any stretch of the imagination. But if Bucky was a dog his ears would've fucking  _perked up_  at the familiar tune that thrummed down the hallway.

It wasn't a record. Crisp music still scared the shit out of Bucky. He didn't understand it one bit. Steve had tried to introduce Bucky to  _Spotify_ , whatever the hell that was, and Bucky had just ended up smacking his hand just a little bit too hard into the keyboard.

(They were fucking  _fragile_ , okay?)

The music was picking up a bit now, the beats bouncing along steadily. Bucky could hear the words to the song jumping around his skull in time with the rhythm. He and Steve used to dance to this song. God, he remembered it like yesterday. Down the hall, the tune suddenly dipped, then climbed up again in a steady crescendo.

“A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I got a pal--”

Bucky’s heart felt like it was going to split his chest in half when the silent words formed on the tip of his tongue automatically at the sound of Steve’s voice.

“-- _in Kalamazoo_!”

Steve was singing.  _Singing_.

Back in the 40s, Steve used to be a real good singer. If he’d ever gotten past his nerves, he coulda got any dame he wanted. Instead, he sang to Bucky, and Bucky alone. His damn lungs used to screw him over. He could hardly get three lines of the song out before he'd choke on his own breath and need to stop. Every cough fucking broke Bucky. If Steve hadn't been so damn messed up by the world and his own stupid body, he could've gone on to do big things.

(Bucky supposed the whole Captain America thing was pretty big, but Steve had never really wanted that.)

“Don't wanta boast but I know he’s the toast--”

Bucky wanted to join in. The words were there. Bucky’s diaphragm hadn't been used for singing in decades, but, for Steve, he could. In a fucking instant.

“-- _of Kalamazoo-zoo-zoo-zoo-zoo-zoo!_ ”

Steve was still singing. His voice hadn't given out on that string, like it usually did. Honest to God, he sounded just like he’d been plucked straight out of the 40s. And he  _wasn't choking_.

Bucky coulda cried.

Instead, he stood up and left his bedroom.

Yeah, he was shallow. Steve’s damn ugly nostalgic music could drag Bucky outta his room in a snap, but this song was  _special_. It meant so much to them back in the 40s. They'd danced and kissed and made love to this song more times than Bucky could count.

(Having sex to swing music was  _damn_  difficult, but when you had nothing else to work with, you  _made_  it work.)

“Years have gone by--”

Bucky’s mouth opened automatically, the words threatening to spill out. It would be so easy just to join in on the final words of each line. Like riding a bicycle.

“-- _my, my, how he grew_!”

There were parts of the song where Bucky used to take over from Steve. Sure, most of it was Steve’s part and Bucky just echoed him, but some lines were all Bucky, back in the day. Would Steve sing them? Bucky sorta hoped he wouldn't. It was  _their_  song after all.

Steve hadn't forgotten the words. After all this time, he still sang that stupid, altered pronouns version. The old song was really called  _I’ve Got a Gal in Kalamazoo_ , but Steve flipped it the first time he heard it in the movies and made it _I’ve Got a Pal in Kalamazoo_. It sounded innocent and friendly enough, but to Bucky it meant the goddamn world in a time when he and Steve couldn't be frigging honest about how they felt.

The floorboards creaked under Bucky’s weight, but Steve’s humming of the instrumental part of the song didn't let up. Bucky felt like a damn creep when he leant against the bathroom door, ignoring the sweaty heat of the steam flooding under the doorway and across his bare feet.

He pressed his lips together. Sure, he and Steve were friends (and always would be, if Bucky had any say in it) but standing silently outside their shared bathroom in their shared home with hardly any clothes on was probably gonna freak Steve out a bit. Bucky  _was_  wearing the pair of star spangled boxers that Steve had slipped under his bedroom door on Bucky’s birthday that year, during the time Bucky couldn't pull himself out of Hydra enough to speak to Steve.

“I liked his looks when I carried his books--”

Steve was still going, Bucky realised with a shiver. He hadn't choked yet. Hadn't slipped up.

“-- _in Kalamazoo-zoo-zoo-zoo-zoo_.”

Bucky laid both his hands against the door of the bathroom, ear pressed flat against the wood. He distinctly heard Steve suck in a sharp breath, then pop the cap of some of his girly scented shower gel as he continued to sing, hardly skipping a beat.

“I'm gonna send a wire--” Steve’s voice pitched right up half an octave, his beautiful baritone vocals lost to the acoustics of their shitty bathroom, “--hopping on a flyer--”

Bucky’s mouth opened and the words fell out, low and slow like a prayer, before he could stop them, “-- _leaving today_!”

Bucky had always been the bass between him and Steve, and time had only served to highlight the differences in their voices. His had dropped even more, while Steve had retained his breathy pitch from back in the day. Bucky supposed his voice was distinguishable from the noise of the shower, as there was a bang inside the bathroom (and had Captain America just said  _fuck_?)

The music continued, regardless, and Steve picked up almost immediately: “Am I dreamin’, I can hear him screamin’!”

Bucky leaned away from the door, took in a deep breath and, in one exhalation, sang his line.

“ _Hi-ya, Mr Rogers, everything's OK-A-L-A-M-A-Z-O!_ ”

Steve stuttered a little as he sang, “Oh, what a pal--”

Then, together: “-- _a real pipparoo_!”

With a click, the bathroom door opened, and a wet, slightly soapy, and completely naked Steve stepped into the hallway. Bucky watched, slightly awestruck, as Steve inhaled harshly and sang, hardly pausing for breath:

“I’ll make my bid for that freckle-faced kid--”

(Steve took Bucky’s hands in his own.)

“--I’m hurrying to--”

(They fell into step, arms settling on waists and shoulders and wet skin, as easy as breathing.)

“I'm goin’ to Brook-a-lyn to see the sweetest pal in Kalamazoo-zoo-zoo!”

(Bucky hadn’t smiled this much in weeks.)

“ _Zoo-zoo-zoo_!”

(Fuck. Bucky loved him.)

“ _Kalamazoo_!”

(Steve held Bucky tight against his chest, then spun him around in a circle twice in the musical interlude, and Bucky might as well’ve been a dame in a skirt with all the twirling he was doing.)

“K!” Steve snorted out the letter, his voice now alight with laughter, all the talent lost to the smile on his lips. Bucky repeated the letter back to him, trying not to laugh himself.

“A!” Steve yelled, then Bucky.

Then, together again: “ _L-A-M-A-Z-O-O_!”

Now, it was Bucky’s turn. He took in the deepest breath he could in the brief gap between the end of their shared line and his, then sang, pouring his whole fucking heart into it.

“ _Oh, what a pal! A real piparoo_ \--” Bucky dragged out the ‘O’ as long as he could, pressing his forehead against Steve’s as the song hit its most mellow point, “ _We’re going to Brook-a-lyn to see the sweetest pal in Kalamazoo_!”

Once his final line was complete, Bucky mentally uttered  _‘fuck it’_  and pulled Steve in for a kiss.

Steve laughed against Bucky’s lips, and whispered  _his_  final line around his tongue, “Zoo-zoo-zoo-zoo-zoo-zoo-zoo-zoo-zoo!”

And there they stood for a moment, both their bodies shivering with laughter. The points of contact between their bodies--hips, hands, shoulders, lips--were hot and familiar, and Bucky hadn’t felt so content for over seventy fucking years. The musical interlude dragged on for a few seconds of sheer joy, then they both yelled at full-volume, fingers pressing into each other's skin in all the right ways, as close as they always should've been:

“ _Kalamazoo_!”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr [here](http://clokkerfoot.tumblr.com/).


End file.
